Conventional license plates for motor vehicles are produced from a sheet-metal blank that is provided with a reflective coating and is embossed to permit individual creation of the suitable letter and/or number combinations. After being embossed, the sheet-metal blanks are subjected to a hot-roll dying process for dying the embossed letter and/or number combinations. If desired, a transparent protective layer is applied on the finished plates.
A disadvantage is that, for good recognition of the letter and number combinations in the dark, a light source which illuminates the plate must be situated in the immediate vicinity of the license plate on the vehicle, so that the incident light beams can be reflected.
German Published Patent Application No. 198 27 477 describes a license plate for a motor vehicle, which, as active illumination, provides an electrically activatable reflecting film arrangement, situated at least in the region of the marking, which backs the marking and/or the plate surface. The license plate described in German Published Patent Application No. 200 22 563 includes the electroluminescent film arrangement. However, such an electroluminescent film arrangement does not allow the embossing of symbols, particularly letter and/or number combinations.
It is an aspect of the present invention to provide a plate, e.g., a license plate for motor vehicles, that has an electroluminescent construction and that is deformable and able to be embossed.